by Rachel Axon, USA TODAY Sports

by Rachel Axon, USA TODAY Sports

The University of Miami got hit with the dreaded "lack of institutional control" tag, an NCAA term seldom more fitting than for a program that gave former booster Nevin Shapiro unrestricted access for the better part of a decade.

But the Hurricanes didn't get hit with worse -- additional postseason bans. The school can move forward from a 2-1/2 year NCAA investigation after the Committee on Infractions

In self-imposing postseason bans in 2011 and 2012, which last season meant missing out on the Atlantic Coast Conference championship football game, Miami avoided more serious sanctions. The committee added three years probation, a reduction of nine scholarships in football and three in men's basketball over the next three seasons and recruiting restrictions.

The university previously reduced the number of official visits, fall evaluations and available contact days in 2012-13.

"We did it because we saw that there were significant violations and felt like we should take action immediately and not wait for the NCAA to finish their investigation," UM president Donna Shalala told USA TODAY Sports.

"Because the investigation went on for so long, I'm glad we did," she added. "Once it was very clear to us that there were violations, that we were admitting to them, that we were agreeing with the NCAA, then it was important that we move immediately."

The public release of the infractions report included the NCAA's own admitted mistakes.

"We felt like the institutional, self-imposed penalties were absolutely significant and unprecedented, really," said Conference USA commissioner Britton Banowsky, the committee chairman. "It's a big deal, a very big deal. The fact that it also prevented an ACC competition, a championship game which potentially could have led to a BCS bowl berth, those are very big decisions that were made by the university. And the committee appreciated those decisions."

Former UM men's basketball coach Frank Haith, now at Missouri, will serve a five-game suspension for failing to monitor the activities of his assistant coaches and attempting "to cover up the booster's threats to disclose incriminating information," according to the NCAA news release.

Former assistant football coaches Clint Hurtt and Aubrey Hill and former assistant basketball coach Jorge Fernandez were given two-year "show cause" orders, effectively keeping them from working at the collegiate level.

Hurtt, an assistant at Louisville, will be retained but is subject to additional penalties and restrictions.

UM received a notice of allegations in February, appeared before the Committee on Infractions (COI) on June 13-14 and had hoped to receive a decision before the start of the football season. More than four months later and halfway through the season, Miami is 6-0 and ranked sixth in the USA TODAY Coaches' Poll and seventh in the BCS standings.

Banowsky said the volume of the case -- which included thousands of records in 15 binders -- prevented the committee from issuing its findings in a typical time frame.

"Unfortunately, the case lasted not only three-plus years in the investigation stage but also had a lot of complexities that were extraordinary," he said. "The sheer volume of the case was enormous."

Detailed in the 102-page final report is Shapiro's seemingly unobstructed involvement in the program from 2001 to 2010. The committee found UM lacked institutional control in monitoring Shapiro's activities as the booster gave $500,000 to the athletics department over a seven-year period.

Shapiro's visible position at UM, where an athlete lounge bore his name, gave him access to coaches and athletes. The NCAA was able to corroborate allegations that Shapiro entertained UM athletes and recruits at his home, on his yacht and at local restaurants. It also showed Shapiro provided cash and gifts to athletes, hotel lodging for recruits and airline tickets.

Shapiro invested in Axcess Sports, an agency which the NCAA showed paid $50,000 to sign a former UM athlete, believed to be defensive tackle Vince Wilfork, who is now with the New England Patriots. He also received $3,000 over the course of a year from Shapiro as well as a washer and dryer from the booster's mother.

UM did not dispute many of the violations, which included 18 allegations of misconduct and 79 issues within those. The investigation included 118 interviews with 81 people.

"While the institution contends that the booster operated 'in the shadows' in places 'that institutional eyes don't often frequent,' the committee concludes otherwise," the report states. "The booster visibly entertained small and large groups of student-athletes and operated in the public view of the institution and the nearby city of Miami.

"Five coaches in football and three coaches in basketball either had a poor understanding of the rules or felt comfortable breaking them."

Detailing Haith's involvement

Most notable among those coaches is Haith, who tried to mislead the enforcement staff, the committee concluded.

When Shapiro -- who is serving a 20-year sentence in federal prison for running a $930 million Ponzi scheme -- began to have financial trouble, he turned to Haith for a loan or to have a $50,000 donation returned. Haith balked at the request, according to the report.

Shapiro was incarcerated in 2010, after which he began to threaten Haith and demand money, the report said. Haith and former assistant coach Jake Morton worked together to pay Shapiro's mother $10,000 and end the threats.

Haith gave inconsistent accounts of what he knew about the threats in three interviews with the NCAA enforcement, and the committee concluded he tried to mislead investigators. Shapiro threatened to reveal that the two men, and Morton, had visited a strip club together and that Shapiro had funneled $10,000 to the coaches to help them sign DeQuan Jones.

"The former head men's basketball coach described being embarrassed by the night at the strip club because he was married, and in Miami, that would have been a 'bad deal,' " the report states.

The committee notes that Haith requested a third interview because he had previously implicated himself and Morton earlier in disclosing when he knew about the threats from Shapiro and what involvement he had in paying the former booster.

In not reporting the threats to compliance in a timely manner or raising concerns about Shapiro's close relationship with Morton, Haith committed a violation for failure to monitor.

"While I strongly disagree with today's report, and the inference on how the program was run at the University of Miami, as head basketball coach during that period, I accept responsibility for all actions in and around that program," Haith said in a statement, adding that he doesn't plan to appeal.

Haith's was not the only issue in the basketball program. Fernandez was found to have secured airline tickets for a recruit, his high school coach and the mother of a UM athlete using his reward miles. He initially denied securing two of the tickets before admitting to acquiring them in all three instances before the COI in the June hearing.

While the committee acknowledged his admission, it noted Fernandez "had considerable opportunity prior to that point to come forward with the truth."

As Haith is quoted in the COI report: "Did we win enough games for the Miami supporters? You read the papers, I don't think they felt that great about what we did here. I didn't recruit, I didn't get five-star guys. And let's, like I said, let's don't be naïve about the level. Our business is corrupt."

During the committee hearing, representatives for Miami continued to assert that athletes and coaches had received compliance education.

When questioned by a committee member as to why they did the wrong thing and did not report the violations, one representative said, "Let me put it this way. They got conned by a con man. I think that he sucked them in. I think that obviously they weren't strong enough to resist. You heard it from those two coaches. They were scared to death they were going to get fired once they realized the situation they were in."

NCAA not spared

The closure of the case allows UM and the NCAA to move on from what has been an ugly ordeal for both sides.

According to the NCAA's timeline, Miami first notified it of an internal investigation into potential violations regarding phone and text messages in late 2009. The school began the summary disposition process in the fall of 2010, but Shapiro took his allegations to the NCAA in February 2011.

The NCAA's enforcement staff interviewed him more than 20 times from March to May of that year. The details of his allegations were laid out in August 2011 when Yahoo! Sports reported Shapiro provided thousands in impermissible benefits to 72 UM athletes from 2002 to 2010.

The NCAA was later forced to toss out about 20% of its case against Miami after it revealed involvement with Shapiro's attorney, Maria Elena Perez.

In January, the NCAA commissioned a review that found former investigator Ameen Najjar acted against the advice of the association's legal counsel in entering into an agreement with Perez to get the testimony of otherwise uncooperative parties through the bankruptcy process.

The NCAA paid Perez nearly $20,000, but the sides disagree on how the costs were incurred. The NCAA said it was for copying fees for the documentation, but Perez billed the association for nearly three times that amount for her time and work deposing key witnesses who could corroborate Shapiro's allegations.

Although the NCAA-commissioned review found no NCAA bylaws were broken and the arrangement did not violate the rules of bankruptcy proceedings, it fired vice president of enforcement Julie Roe Lach. Najjar was fired in May 2012 for undisclosed reasons.

The depositions Perez conducted of Sean "Pee Wee" Allen, a former Miami student manager and Shapiro's go-between, and Michael Huyghue, Shapiro's partner in Axcess Sports, were excluded from the NCAA's Notice of Allegations.

This spring Miami asked the COI to take an unprecedented step and dismiss the case because of the NCAA's admitted mishandling of it. The group declined to do so.

After hearing the case, it took the committee four months to issue its findings.

"Our hope is that this frustrating, disappointing chapter for the institution and the NCAA can be one more step closer to being closed and that all of those affected can now move forward," Banowsky said.